UK Data AtlasAPI

Get a map resource

Everything you need to draw one boundary release: the tile and archive URLs, zoom levels, where the shapes came from and the attribution to show beside your map.

get
/map-resources/{geography}/{release}

Path parameters

  • geographystringrequired

    A geography type id, e.g. constituency or ward.

  • releasestringrequired

    A boundary release id, e.g. 2024-07-uk-bgc, or latest for the geography's newest release: the one /boundary-releases:resolve chooses for the furthest date. A response to latest names the release it read in Content-Location. A geography whose newest month holds several releases that differ in more than coverage, or that has a release whose id carries no month, is refused with 409 and the releases that could be newest.

Returns

MapResourceEnvelope

The map resource descriptor.

  • apiVersionv1required
  • atlasReleasestringrequired

    The immutable /atlas-release releaseId for the artifacts that produced this response.

  • metaobjectrequired
    Show1 child field
    • nextCursorstring | nullrequired

      Opaque cursor for the next page, or null at the end.

  • dataMapResourcerequired
    Show14 child fields
    • idstringrequired
    • geographystringrequired
    • boundaryReleasestringrequired
    • titlestringrequired
    • topologyshared-arcrequired

      Borders are compiled once and shared by the two areas along them, so a tier cannot draw the same border two ways.

    • areaCountintegerrequired
    • arcCountintegerrequired

      Distinct boundary arcs the release decomposes into.

    • boundsnumber[]required

      West, south, east and north, in degrees.

    • tilesMapResourceTilesrequired
      Show11 child fields
      • artifactstringrequired
      • hrefstringrequired
      • formatpmtiles-3required
      • tileFormatmvt-2.1required
      • layerstringrequired
      • minZoomintegerrequired
      • maxZoomintegerrequired
      • zoomsobject[]required

        Which generalisation tier each band of zooms is drawn from.

        Show4 child fields
        • minZoomintegerrequired
        • maxZoomintegerrequired
        • tierstringrequired
        • toleranceMnumberrequired
      • tileCountintegerrequired
      • bytesintegerrequired
      • contentHashstringrequired

        SHA-256 of the archive, so a cited map can be checked.

    • tiersobject[]required
      Show4 child fields
      • tierstringrequired
      • toleranceMnumberrequired
      • coordinatesintegerrequired
      • refinedArcsintegerrequired

        Arcs given back detail because a ring built from them enclosed nothing at this tier, so no part leaves the map.

    • featuresobject[]required

      Every tier as a whole-release download, in GeoParquet and in GeoJSON, compiled from the same shared-arc generalisation as the tiles.

      Show10 child fields
      • tierstringrequired
        One offullhighmediumlow
      • toleranceMnumberrequired
      • formatstringrequired
        One ofgeoparquet-1.1geojson
      • artifactstringrequired
      • hrefstringrequired
      • rowCountintegerrequired

        One row per area in the release.

      • coordinatesintegerrequired

        Coordinates across the tier's shared arcs, each border counted once.

      • bytesintegerrequired
      • contentHashstringrequired

        SHA-256 of the file served at href, once any content encoding is undone.

      • gzipBytesintegeroptional

        Present when the file is stored gzipped, as GeoJSON is: its size as sent with Content-Encoding: gzip.

    • generalisationobjectrequired

      The terms the tiers were compiled on, in plain words.

    • geometrySourceobjectrequired

      The publisher file behind the shapes, and how it was transformed.

    • attributionobjectrequired
      Show5 child fields
      • textstringrequired

        Ready to display beside the map.

      • publisherstringrequired
      • sourceUrlstringrequired
      • licenceobjectrequired
        Show2 child fields
        • namestringrequired

          Reproduced as the publisher states it, not interpreted.

        • urlstringoptional
      • hrefstringrequired

When it goes wrong

  • 404No resource matches that identity.
  • 503The referenced build artifact has not been built yet.

Every error has the same shape. See Errors for how to handle them.

Technical notes

Show the precise behaviour

The only document a client needs to read to draw this release. It carries the tile and archive URLs, the zoom ladder and the tier behind each zoom, the content hash of the archive, the publisher file the shapes were compiled from, and the attribution to display beside the map.